


a sign, an omen, and the vision-1.

by arrowthroughtheheart



Series: gore, angst, and my babies. [1]
Category: ITZY (Band), NCT (Band), Stray Kids (Band), TOMORROW X TOGETHER | TXT (Korea Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Normal High School, Alternate Universe - Zombie Apocalypse, But also, Gen, High School Students NCT Dream, Mentioned ITZY Ensemble, Mentioned NCT Dream Ensemble, Mentioned TOMORROW X TOGETHER Ensemble, Mild Gore, Minor Violence, NCT 127 Ensemble-centric, POV Alternating, Pre-Zombie Apocalypse, Stray Kids Ensemble-centric, everyone else is mentioned - Freeform, kinda assasination classroom vibes iykwim, nct 127 are teachers au, not accurate to anything, shit i'm bad at this, that sounds cute omg, writing about the apocalypse in the middle of an apocalypse issa vibe man
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-27
Updated: 2020-04-27
Packaged: 2021-03-02 00:47:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,880
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23876401
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arrowthroughtheheart/pseuds/arrowthroughtheheart
Summary: Hyunjin realizes how day by day his life turns upside down in an episode of some apocalyptic clichés, but maybe it's not so bad?
Relationships: Choi Jisu | Lia/Hwang Yeji, Choi Jisu | Lia/Hwang Yeji/Shin Ryujin, Ennik Somi Douma | Jeon Somi/Lee Chaeryeong, Han Jisung | Han/Hwang Hyunjin/Kim Seungmin/Lee Felix, Hwang Hyunjin & Hwang Yeji, Hwang Hyunjin/Kim Seungmin, Hwang Hyunjin/Lee Felix, Hwang Hyunjin/Lee Jeno, Hwang Yeji/Lee Chaeryeong, Hwang Yeji/Shin Ryujin, Jung Yoonoh | Jaehyun/Lee Taeyong, Jung Yoonoh | Jaehyun/Suh Youngho | Johnny, Lee Jeno/Na Jaemin, Lee Taeyong/Everyone, Lee Taeyong/Suh Youngho | Johnny, Moon Taeil/Suh Youngho | Johnny
Series: gore, angst, and my babies. [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1720744
Comments: 10
Kudos: 20





	a sign, an omen, and the vision-1.

**Author's Note:**

> what the fuck is up, losers. hehe.  
> this is a remade from an old fic i've never showed anyone but my cousins. the plot is slightly different since it's now taken from a different period of time going towards the fic this was previously written about and some other characters are still alive and some aren't. . . here yet. . .  
> .  
> .  
> there's going to be more of this and this monster is probably gonna be finished first because I alr have a plot I'm working towards, soooooo- eveRYTHING ELSE IS ON HIATUS, IF YOU CAN'T ALREADY TELL. aight i love yall. enjoy.

“Well, well,” Hyunjin exhales, pulling out his designated seat from where it was situated previously, a scheming smile decorated on his bored facial structures. “Who would’ve thought, huh?” he continues then, seating himself on the empty chair while another pair of eyes that mirrored his own blinked lazily, uninterested. It belonged to a female, and if Hyunjin didn’t know any better he would’ve sat there in shock, thinking that there’s a mirror right in front of him.

_ “The  _ Hwang Yeji,” Hyunjin chuckles, shoving his backpack underneath the table a little too forcefully. They both cringe when the table’s four feet screeched as it came in contact with the tiled floor, and Hyunjin lets himself be swallowed in shame while he lifts his head up to hold eye-contact with this familiar girl. “I haven’t seen you in a while, too. How’s life going?”

The clock ticks in silence, hung far high in front of the almost empty class save for the two very early students seated at the very front.

“Not the best,” Yeji replies, face as emotionless as the wall behind her, “but I manage.”

“You’re moving back in, huh?” Hyunjin shoots another question, taking notes of how rigid this made Yeji look but ignoring it for the sake of being fluidly friendly. Yeji should be thankful that he ignored how stiff she’s become just from one single question. “You can say that, I guess,” the girl retorts after a while of silence, and Hyunjin grows curious. 

“Welcome back,” he ends it with a whisper, eyes now nailed on his phone’s screen. Yeji hums a quick thank you, and they fall into a comfortable silence.

. .

Physical education bores the fuck out of Hyunjin. Not because he can’t physically do it, but because it just never serves its purpose. Well, maybe that’s a bit harsh. It  _ was  _ first created to keep the students in shape and healthy enough to not die young, he supposes, and leave behind their entire asset - so it’s good in that kind of way. It’s just not good when they’re ranked like this, and everyone can see that some are more superior than the rest and the rest are either gauging everyone else’s reactions in fear of being mocked or is down on their knees sucking up to the ‘superior’ few. 

What kind of P.E class is this, anyways? Last time Hyunjin checked, sharp weaponry aren’t supposed to be anywhere near any of the kids, especially the third-years. It being himself and the rest of his friends, he supposes, since they managed to hurt themselves enough without knives and axes lying around in a ‘friendly banter’. 

“Are we supposed to prove something with these throwing knives. . . or am I reading the situation wrong?” Hyunjin leans on his right foot, resting his arms on his hips, already bored. His target is filled with a few dozen throwing knives, and he’s good enough to squish some more in between, but what’s the point of that aside from their P.E teacher scrambling quickly on a note, seemingly very interested in whatever Hyunjin is capable of?

Felix, standing a meter away from him across another target, laughs. “I don’t think you  _ ever  _ read a situation wrong, Hyunjin,” the freckled boy continues, eyebrows furrowed and lips pursed when his current knife didn’t hit bullseye, even if it’s the first time he missed, just because he was a little too focused on answering Hyunjin’s question that his aim tethered to the left even if just a bit.

“That’s what I’m afraid of,” Hyunjin sighs, pulling his hair back from his eyes. It’s getting too long, he might cut it after today.  _ Or he can use these knives,  _ he thinks to himself, almost chuckling audibly.

“Good, Miss Hwang - I mean, Yeji. Keep it up!”  _ another  _ teacher chimed from the background, and Hyunjin finds himself turning around to see what is up. Yeji is being praised for her extreme accuracy and speed, apparently, since her target is a little more filled than Hyunjin’s even though they all started at the same time and Hyunjin likes to think they’re almost on par with accuracy, though he never sees the thrill of throwing knives as fast as you can; something Yeji definitely excels in. “Hwang Hyunjin?” his own teacher calls out to him, and his focus is brought back upon his own target as the man taps on the dummy’s head. “Eyes on your own target, Hwang Hyunjin. Not all of us are going to fight someone else’s battles,” he said, and then walked away.

Hyunjin spared a second to look at Felix, who was looking at him, and they both shrugged.  _ Why the fuck are we treated like we’re in military service?  _ Echoes in Hyunjin’s mind, but before that could happen, the sound of a whistle cuts everyone’s movement short.

“15 minutes break! Everyone come here for a second,” the teacher who previously scolded Hyunjin called out, sitting in front of a digital scoring-board. 

The entirety of their school’s third year, who apparently was made to have physical education class all together, huddled in front of the teacher. Some of their eyes are filled with curiosity, some fear, and some look dead inside. Hyunjin wants to laugh at Seungmin, his friend who usually sits behind him and Yeji in class because he looks so tired and out of breath already, but decided against it. His eyes found Yeji’s, and he mimed a ‘please throw me my water bottle’ which she did, and it landed on his hand only with slight disturbance from Ryujin, an underclassman who was on her way to the toilet right when this exchange happened. 

Ryujin seems disturbed about something else, though, and Hyunjin reminds himself that ‘oh right, not every P.E class uses throwing knives as much as they use volleyballs’, but this disturbed Hyunjin’s generally calm mind throughout this weird day, so he ignored it.

“Let me show you all your scores,” the teacher mumbles, shooting down any questions from the students with a ‘not yet’ or a ‘we’ll explain this later, hush’, and Hyunjin grows even more curious. The rest of his year shares this curiosity and fear, mostly fear, but none of them dared to move a muscle under the scrutinizing gaze of Mr. Seo. 

This scary teacher has dubbed himself as ‘Mr. Johnny’ from Chicago to most of them, but little to no student actually dared to call him that - or call him at all. And they’ve known him for almost three years, by now.

The screen is now moving, calculating, and the first name they see is accompanied by the high amount of 55/15 - which meant fifty-five knives in fifteen seconds, and they usually only count the ones  _ right  _ in the deadly point of the dummy’s human-like features - accompanied by a very shocking name. 

_ Well,  _ Hyunjin thinks to himself, tilting his head,  _ not really shocking for me. _

Hwang Yeji comes at the very top, and Hyunjin sees her jerking her head backwards, nose scrunching and eyes narrowing to try and read the scoreboard. 

Hyunjin comes second, and he stopped a smile from appearing on his lips at the stupidly little gap he and Yeji had, even if he was a little distracted earlier. He comes in with 53/15, noticing how there’s a little animated silver crown on top of his also silver name. At the very end of his column in the scoreboard, a little  _ VC  _ is written, in all caps, and he hums. Mr. Seo is still looking at him, judgemental, and he threw him a little peace sign. Mr. Seo sighs, very much over it.

“How do you two always have this neck-on-neck battle when it comes to things that are ranked?” Felix leans closer, and Hyunjin shrugs. “I could’ve done better,” Hyunjin whines playfully, eyes caught on the name right underneath his.  _ Jeon Somi? Isn’t that an underclassman? _

“What?” someone else’s voice comes from behind him, agreeing to whatever is going on in Hyunjin’s mind. It  _ is  _ an underclassman. Interesting.

“The scoreboard is an overall score,” Mr. Seo interjects, seemingly disturbed by the growing curiosity of the students that spilled over in their increasingly loud mumbles. “It’s the entire highschool’s scores up here,” he continues, stifling a little laugh, “so I advise you to maybe watch out for Yeji and Hyunjin.”

The two mentioned shared a look before Mr. Seo continues.

“Who knows what they’re going to do to you when you’re not looking, hm?”

They left the field wondering what the fuck Mr. Seo means, and a few wondering glance Hyunjin threw around the class to see how each ranker looks. Hyunjin still doesn’t know why he’s so on edge about this and how the rest of his friends look just peachy, and he avoided looking for Lia when she placed last place out of respect for how she’s going to feel. She’s a graceful and seemingly fragile girl, and Hyunjin felt a sense of injustice when Mr. Seo sighed in discontent even though she scored fifteen knives in fifteen seconds - that’s like, better than the general public’s ability! 

Han Jisung swings his leg over the bench at the corner, where they stored their drinking bottles to avoid the sun’s direct heat. “Genius ass,” he refers to Hyunjin, and Hyunjin makes no move to acknowledge his nickname. “What do you think is happening?”

Hyunjin now looks at Jisung, noticing how shaky and afraid he sounds just now, and he almost praises his friends for how calm they’ve been acting this whole time. Hyunjin is almost 100% sure everyone is able to read his nerves and find out how out of place this entire ordeal feels since this morning, but the fact that the rest of his peers are as nervous as he is goes in some ways a different extent of comforting. Which it shouldn’t be. They’re still going to hold more weapons, and the P.E class is far from over. 

“We’re in an alternate universe,” Hyunjin splutters without thinking, “and we’re trained for World War III. All because they’re running out on reliable soldiers.”

Jisung snorts, and Hyunjin finds himself smiling along. 

“But did you see the news, though?” Seungmin inches closer in their direction, fishing out his phone from his backpack’s pocket. “About the explosion? At the Industrial Sector nearby? Yeah,” Felix shrugs, and Hyunjin pays no mind to it. Felix is a well known sci-fi nerd, and he probably knows first thing in the morning if the sun shifts even a little bit, and maybe he’ll even scold Hyunjin for thinking that the sun is the one that moves. Hyunjin doesn’t think so, but it’s just fun to rile Felix up and make him rant about scientific things. 

“Isn’t it weird how there’s no update about this? The factory that exploded was big enough, I think, and it’s been over 24 hours. You would think the local TV news would already be picking up on some news, but there’s nothing. This is like, the last thing we’ve heard about it,” Seungmin continues, expecting no one but Felix to care. “True. That  _ is  _ a bit weird,” Felix nods, and Hyunjin hums. Felix doesn’t care about these things? He looks at his friend’s distracted expression closer.  _ He’s thinking of something else. _

Jisung yawns from beside Hyunjin, though, and he’s pulled from his thoughts earlier just to stare at the smaller sharply. “Must you yawn in my ear like that? It’s not amusing for me and my ear canals,” Hyunjin shoves Jisung with his feet, and the light-haired protests right away. Hyunjin has no idea how the younger managed to bleach his hair without pulling at any of the teacher’s strings and setting them on a hunt for his head, but Jisung does questionable things all the time, so. “Ear canals? Fucking disgusting. Dude, use another language?” Jisung playfully gags.

“Funny,” Hyunjin wipes the sweat of his brows, “I don’t really fucking care. Just don’t gag on my shorts.”

Their head snaps towards Mr. Seo’s direction, only to find out that he’s no longer sitting there near the scoreboard, but another teacher is. Weirdly enough, it’s their sociology teacher. Lee Taeyong, the eccentric one with slit eyebrows and piercings, and an actively changing hair colour from time to time? Right now he has a short but noticeable enough mullet with red bright hair colour, and Jisung complimented him on the new colour shortly after their arrival by his side. Taeyong is nice enough to accept the compliment and returns one to Jisung, accompanied by a little hair-ruffling session when Jisung gets a little too excited before he turns around, ushering everyone to follow him.

Hyunjin hears Choi Jongho’s voice in the back, asking his friend about the schedule since ‘isn’t this still P.E class?’ but they’re currently following their sociology teacher. Taeyong overheard this, and he turned around to find Jongho’s eyes.

“Yes, Jongho, we are still in physical education class. It’s actually extended, if I remember correctly,” he chuckles when Jongho retorts with an exasperated sigh.  _ Same,  _ Hyunjin sympathizes within his own head, but what is this news they’re hearing? Extended? Until when? Don’t tell him that school hours are also extended-

They round the corner into a field that previously was under renovation, also known as the part of the school they’ve never been into before. There used to be high walls made out of light wooden boards, but now it’s just a normal looking field with targets - more of those dummy human-like ones - on the far end of the field, and for a second Hyunjin thought they’re going to do archery before he noted the glasses and ear protection littering around the side of the field. And guns. Like. . . fucking machine guns. 

“This is considered physical education, now?” Lia wonders, standing on one side of Taeyong while Hyunjin and his group of friends stood on their teacher’s other side. Taeyong tilts his head back and forth while his brain processes the question, and he ends up chuckling. “Yes and no. It all depends on our point of view, young lady. Now!” the teacher claps both of his hands, turning around to face the third years, now divided into three groups based on their classes. 

“I have the scores from knife-throwing, collected by my good pal Youngho. He’s very much grumpy today, I have no idea why,” Taeyong nods sympathetically when Hyunjin whines ‘right?’ before continuing, “but he was right about one thing, though.”

Felix squints, “And that is?”

Taeyong smiles at the freckled boy. “That most of you all are a diamond in the rough. Let’s get to it, shall we?”

All of a sudden he pulls something out of his belt, putting some more inches between himself and his students, a type of mediocre but long enough blade pointed to the young adolescence. The kids flinched for a second, but made no step backwards. Taeyong chuckles. “Oh, no, no, no. Relax, I haven’t turned into a blood-thirsty man on a killing spree for children, all of a sudden. I would be at a disadvantage then, since there’s 45 of you and one of me, and there are many loaded guns over there that some of you can run to  _ if  _ my screws come loose. All you have to do is put a bullet through here,” Taeyong points the point of his blade to his temple, imitating a gunshot childishly, “and I’ll be gone.”

“But no, kids. Not yet, at least,” Taeyong puts his hands on his hip, and he laughs at how much the students visibly relax. He’s impressed at how calm they’ve been facing this, though, and that’s saying a lot. Maybe they knew? This  _ is  _ the number one school very smart kids go to in this prefecture, at least, so maybe they’ve been looking down on these kids this whole time?

“This,” Taeyong motions to his blade. “This is a new and improved curriculum. In every education there are some important factors, right? Like what we are educating the kids, the discipline we have to give the kids if they act up, and the respect we expect from the kids? Isn’t that right? That’s how our classes usually go, correct?” he asks, expecting an answer.

“I usually sleep in your classes, Sir, no offense,” Jisung chimes in, leaning on one of his feet. Taeyong hums, unamused. “Right. I forgot sociology is a pain in the ass for most of you. Screw Mr. Lee, am I right?”

“But, Han Jisung,” Taeyong waves his index finger, all of a sudden. “Usually I  _ did  _ give you discipline after sleeping in, right? Like a stack of homeworks, and such?”

Jisung nods. 

Taeyong laughs, albeit a bit too triumphantly. “This, kids,” he motions to his blade, “is what it is. No more extra stacks of homework, no more staying at school late, and no more cleaning up the toilet - since we’ve stopped pretending to be decent teachers, we’ll get people to clean up this entire building. But instead, if you mess up,” Taeyong trails off for dramatic effect, making extreme eye-contact with his blade, “you just have to endure a little bit of pain. Not so much. . . I promise I would never kill you,” he looks up with a smile, noticing how most of his students are teary eyed. He stands with his arms on his hips once again, head tilted. “Whaddya say?”

“We  _ literally  _ owe you, man,” Hyunjin comes up, his hand hanging mid-air, waiting for Taeyong to return his high-five. “I would suffer anything in this world just to  _ not  _ do homeworks. You’re literally the fucking best.”

Taeyong shrugs, returning the young man’s long-awaited high-five. The rest of them follow suit, apparently unable to go against Hyunjin’s words, as per usual. The mentioned young man is their student council’s president too, so usually his words are final unless it’s relating to other people’s business rather than academic choices, and the rest of the kids figured that it won’t be that bad, apparently. Taeyong is known to have a few loose screws, but he’s been with them for almost three years, too, and they’re almost 100% sure he won’t actually hurt any of them. 

Taeyong watches silently as the students line up a few feet behind the stacked weaponry in the corner, eyes narrowed on someone specifically.

_ So they follow what Hwang Hyunjin says, hm? _

“Alright,” Taeyong claps his hands like a motivational speaker, leaning forward to grab his own gun, stored underneath a bench not so far from where they were standing. “I guess. . .” he trails off, never expecting it to be this easy, “I guess we start? I’ll show you how to do it, and then the first two rankers may follow. Everyone else is not allowed to move, okay? Two at a time, if not I’m unable to keep an eye out for you,” Taeyong concludes, chuckling as he puts on his gloves and glasses. It’s only a half on, his glasses, and his other eye is bare and exposed to the real view - but Hyunjin takes notes that they’re all coloured purple. 

“Shit, I almost forgot. Put on your ear protections,” he orders, listening attentively as some shuffles are heard in the background. “Jaehyun will have my head beheaded if none of you are able to listen to his very much theory-induced class later on.”   
Hyunjin’s eyes narrowed on the way Taeyong holds the gun, when his fingers are curled on the trigger and how strong, how long he should wait before he’s sure of his target and how to brace for the impact after he pulls the trigger and such, and how Taeyong’s eyes flicker left to right just to measure where his first bullet is going to hit. The sound was still deafening through the ear-protection, and the first shot Taeyong fired pumped his adrenaline up to the roof of his skulls. 

He’s unsure why he tunes out the rest of the entire practice, but he’s sure Taeyong holds his gaze a little longer than necessary when his final score topples Yeji over from the first place, and Hyunjin lets himself keen with pride. 

“Alright,” Taeyong sits on his butt on the ground, “surprisingly a decent enough job. I forget most of you are rich and the money overflows, so maybe you’ve had classes like this before.  _ We should’ve just let you all continue with a class out of school, but I don’t think we can risk it.  _ Anyways,” he waves his own arguments off, “let me show you how to put things in and out of this motherfucker. Go sit in a circle, kids.”

. .

Taeyong’s class lasted longer than necessary, just because some kids (read: Jisung and Seungmin) were all up on his face questioning about that one time when the third years are freshmen, an increasing amount of teachers were changed and if it was their doing - even though none of them knows what Taeyong and the rest of the teachers are doing in the first place - and if there are normal, untrained for violence teachers left in the entire academy, to which Taeyong’s answer was no. He promised that he’s going to tell them all the story one day, and reminded Hyunjin and Yeji to come to the teacher’s office the next day before making them get the fuck out of school grounds. They didn’t get to see what Mr. Jung was preparing, although Taeyong assured them that the younger teacher was excited to share it with the class.

“He’s a music teacher,” Yeji mumbles, walking beside Hyunjin and Jisung since the three of them live in the same area. “I wonder what he could be preparing.”

Hyunjin ponders, looking at the sunset. 

“Maybe we’ll learn to utilize musical instruments on a war ground, or something?” he retorts, ignoring the glare Yeji sent his way right after. She doesn’t mean any harm, Hyunjin is sure. But then Jisung pounced on his shoulder, a bit too excited over his idea to hold himself from sharing it out loud.

“Dude, dude, like listen-” the smallest between the three stops the two Hwangs, his arms flailing here and there like crazy. “We’ve been attacking dummies, right? So they’re all like, non-moving targets?”

“Well, yea, but it’s the first day of- whatever this is. We don’t even know what they want from us yet,” Yeji is the only one who replies, and Hyunjin has half a heart to remind her to just let Jisung speak if they want to go home immediately. He doesn’t say anything, though, opting to glare at Jisung, who felt it immediately. “I know, but it’s an early reading into the future!” Jisung speaks, faster than before. “All I’m saying is I don’t think it’s a war. . . thing.”

Hyunjin frowns, now actually intrigued although he looks a little more annoyed than what he actually is feeling since Jisung flinched and Yeji’s right hand flew in front of him to stop a fight before it even happens. “What do you mean, Sung?”

“Like- okay. War happens right, which means you have enemies on the other side. Enemies means it can go one or two ways, one moving, and the other one doesn’t. Unless we’re trained to be long-distance snipers, I don’t think the enemy is supposed to be moving. But what kind of enemy is it if they  _ don’t  _ move? You know?” Jisung proceeds, eyes round and glinting in excitement. Yeji looks like she’s catching up, releasing a breath she’s been holding for a while. “Oh my god, Jisung?” she cuts in, “this might be the only time your words comforted me.”

Jisung stops bouncing on his feet, looking at her weirdly.

“Comforting?”

Yeji looks between the two boys she’s walking with, nodding. “Y-yeah? Non-moving enemies means this is all just like an exercise right? That there’s no actual harm incoming? We’re just trained all of a sudden because of a change of curriculum, you know, maybe the government decided that training kids from our age is more effective so that they’re not as clueless when they get older and train in the actual military. You know, like sports schools or music schools but this time it’s shooting and killing people. Though I wonder why they made that transition  _ now.  _ And I didn’t even hear my parents talk about this before,” Yeji pondered for a second, looking back at Jisung, “that’s what you mean, no?”

“No.”

This time, Hyunjin looks at Jisung, too. To be honest, whatever Yeji said reached too far beyond his simplistic mindset and he doesn’t exactly fancy thinking that far ahead - especially since this is their last year and they’re supposed to move on from highschool soon and not think about it anymore, but the girl’s explanation is understandable and logical enough for him to accept. But Jisung didn’t confirm it. 

“Oh, come on,” Hyunjin rolls his eyes, hitting the back of his own neck lightly, feeling how it begins to cramp up from how tired they are this entire day. “What else could you mean, you dumb fuck?”

“Rude ass bitch,” Jisung shoves Hyunjin’s shoulder, Yeji leaping away in the right exact moment before the other’s shoulder would come in contact with hers. “I mean, Yeji,” Jisung opts to stand beside the girl instead, and Hyunjin feels a wash of comfort from the sole fact of Jisung being unable to scream in his ear about his theories. “We’re trained to face an apocalypse instead of a World War type of scenario.”

“Apocalypse?” Yeji echoes, and Jisung nods excitedly. Hyunjin, from Yeji’s other side, is listening too, and the two of them unknowingly synchronized when they nod in understanding. Jisung grimaces, uncomfortable. “Ew. You two are always so weirdly alike. Are you sure you’re not about to confirm the fact that you’re twins separated since birth or some wack ass shit? I’ve been scared long enough- ow!” he falters when Yeji uses her left braided-hair to smack him on the face. “Shut the fuck up,” she states, and Hyunjin snorts in delight. He remembers now why Yeji is his first friend in this academy.

“Well, if your theory is true, I don’t think it’s so bad,” she continues, walking a few steps ahead of the boys, eyes fixed on her phone as she pocketed the wallet which stored her train tickets. “However you want to see it, it could also just serve as a self-protection education class. Maybe one day you’ll have to be the one defending your entire family over zombies, or something,” Yeji finishes, and Hyunjin can see the corner of her mouth twitching into a smirk over how ridiculous the sentence is in her mind. 

Hyunjin disagrees, however. He doesn’t think it’s that ridiculous, as his mind drifts back to their conversation this early morning.

“See you two tomorrow,” Hyunjin bids Jisung and Yeji farewell, who goes further away from his house. The two waved him goodbye as Jisung skids with a bounce on his step to peek at what Yeji is looking at on her phone, and they’re soon engaged in a loud conversation with Yeji laughing and Jisung looking at her weirdly. Hyunjin shrugs, reaching forward to unlock his house’s gate when a sound of another gate opening catches his hearing. He looks back at the house across from theirs, meeting eyes with a boy his age carrying the trash bag. It’s Lee Jeno, his former middle-school friend. Jeno got into another school since he’s so into basketball with his best friend Na Jaemin, and since then Hyunjin didn’t really have time to greet them at all.

“Oh?” Jeno’s eyes turned into crescents with a smile, and he waved his hands. “Hyunjin!”

Hyunjin laughs, forgetting his need to sleep to come exchange a few words with his old friend. “Jeno! You’ve grown a lot, haven’t you?” he pats the other’s shoulder, ignoring the fact that he hears his house’s door unlocking, probably from how sensitive his mother is to their gates’ sounds. If Hyunjin so much as tried opening their gate, his mother would know, usually. “And so have you, jackass. Who thought you’d be so fucking tall? How long has it been, three years?”

Apparently, the noise their conversation has produced is loud enough to be considered annoying, and when Jeno’s door creaked open, Hyunjin almost flinched backwards from shame. Jeno noticed this, however, and calmed him down with a shrug. “Don’t worry. It’s just Jaemin.”

It is Jaemin, making a grand entrance to greet Hyunjin with his loud and unshattering smile, arms open wide as if he’s about to engulf Hyunjin in a hug. Jaemin scared him. 

“Wait, you two live in this house together, now?” Hyunjin questions, and Jeno sighs, sounding very much exasperated. “Jaemin  _ wishes.  _ Only when he’s staying with me does he clean up, and that’s all because I nag his dumbass. Aside from that, he doesn’t really clean. Because  _ I’m  _ so used to cleaning his mess. It’s disgusting, really,” Jeno shivers, kicking the outside trash dump into a close. Jaemin cackles. “Oh, you better get ready then, you germaphobic asshole,” the slightly taller, cotton-candy haired young man continues, and then he spared Hyunjin another look.

“I’m just staying the night since we’re dorming in school starting from tomorrow!”

Hyunjin grimaces. “Woah, really? To do what, 24/7 basketball practice?” he chuckles, and the two in front of them shared a look. “No, Hyunjin. To do that weird-ass new curriculum thing. I thought every school does that?” Jaemin blurts out, a tone quieter than before. “I don’t think it’s all the school, though, Jaemin. I think it’s ‘promising’ schools only. You know? Where the kids with some other extra abilities are at,” Jeno reminds his friend, still talking with hushed tones. “Exactly, Jeno,” Jaemin retorts, pointing at Hyunjin subtly, “this kid’s school is where all the smart ass kids are. Don’t you think they’d use that for like. . . what do smart kids do in the end of the world movies, I don’t really know?” he tilts his head, and then it hits Hyunjin. Damn. And he’s supposed to be the smart one.

“Oh! You guys mean the ‘throwing knives and shooting targets’ thing!” Hyunjin runs a hand through his hair, exasperated while thinking to himself,  _ so it’s not just our school, huh? _

“Are you dorming, too, tomorrow?” Jeno asks, before continuing, “I think they blackmailed our parents to let us do these things. Technically speaking, what kind of parents would allow kids they put in a fancy ass school to be grazed by bullets or throwing knives?”

Hyunjin finds the fact that the schools - or whoever the fuck is running these things, since it obviously  _ isn’t  _ educational in the slightest - dare to blackmail parents of some well-known, established and famous names exhilirating. Whatever the fuck they have in store, Hyunjin finds himself excited. He doesn’t know if this is the right emotion to reflect, though, so he keeps his face as even and calm as possible, maybe even terrified. Yes, yes, terrified. Make Jeno and Jaemin feel bad for dropping hints for him before he knows whatever the fuck is going on and maybe they’d try to calm him down by exposing further hints. Maybe. He’ll be pissed if they don’t.

Jaemin is now looking at Jeno, clearing his throat. 

“Don’t worry, Hyunjin,” the cotton-candy-haired boy circled his hand around Hyunjin’s shoulder. “We’ll still be able to roam around, I think. Especially since both our schools are in this new. . . was it curriculum? That’s what they said,” Jaemin asks Jeno, who thinks that the word ‘curriculum’ was misused in this type of scenario, and then looks back at Hyunjin. “Dorming isn’t going to be bad at all. Maybe we’ll have something like. . . practice with. . . each other?”

Hyunjin purses his lips, trying not to laugh.

“You know damn well this is not sport, Na?” Jeno asks from beside him, massaging his temples. “I fucking know, Lee Jeno, shut up! I was trying to make Hyunjin feel better. You didn’t even attempt to say anything,” Jaemin crosses his arms in front of his chest, and Hyunjin waved the argument off before it gets more heated than it already is. “Good, then. We’ll hang out, I suppose? I still have your number, if I remember correctly?” he asks Jeno, who gave him a thumbs up while Jaemin feels left behind since he never got Hyunjin’s number and only followed him on a few social medias. Neither of them have ever uploaded anything either, being a bit too busy and caught up with their own stuff.

Finally, Hyunjin bade them goodbye to enter his own house, noticing the fact that it was, as he supposed, unlocked. His parents are in the dining room, chatting between themselves, not even acknowledging the fact that Hyunjin came home. He senses the tension while he takes off his shoes, opting to eye his phone instead, scanning through each and every single emoji Jaemin wrote on his contact name earnestly. 

He locks the door, head hanging low to avoid eye-contact he could make to instead chant softly, “I’m home,” before fleeing upstairs, not once being stopped by his mother.

Should he pack?

Taeyong didn’t say anything. His mother or father neither said anything, and his class’ and his Class of 20XX is also silent of any interaction, so he sprawls himself across his bed, tired and spent. That is, until a knock came into his hearing.

“Jin?”

It was his mother, he notes as she opens the door as softly and quietly as possible as if to not disturb the president while he’s at work. Hyunjin is now scrolling through his phone, noticing how Yeji recently uploaded a picture which signified the fact that she just renewed her room and stuff, helped by none other than Lia, who is her best friend, and the picture contained both of the young girls posing in front of their new homemade lantern-sleeping-light thing that is shaped like an ice cream. Hyunjin zooms in the picture, noticing the fact that a big chunk of Lia’s hair is no longer there.  _ She got a haircut? Damn, Hyunjin, you better start taking notes of your friends’ appearance. _

“Come in, Mom,” he sits up on his bed, wincing at how stiff his shoulders feel. Shit, that’s going to be a long-term problem. She doesn’t come in. Instead, she’s just standing at the door, looking uncomfortable and slightly apologetic. “Jin, honey, listen,” she starts out, “I don’t want you to think as if we’re selling you off to protect our own name, but-”

Hyunjin tunes it out, concluding that he already knows where this is going. 

“I- I will help you pack, if you’d like,” she stammers, focusing on her fingers. Hyunjin looks at her mother. She’s literally ready to get kicked out of his room and have him not talk to her ever again because he’s so mad at this entire ordeal. To this, Hyunjin smiles instead.  _ It’s okay,  _ he thinks, mind flashing back to every single instance in his life ever.  _ I’m used to it, Mom.  _

Having a father who works right under the President’s right hand proves to be difficult, since he’s always needed to keep up the act, keep his chin up and never tolerate people’s behaviour when it’s obviously going to put you to shame if you’re anywhere around them. That’s always how it is. He gives up so many things just to be his father’s son, and his mother is always going to be there for his father. It’s just how it is. It’s not like they need him more over here. He can leave. It’ll probably even be for the best! At school, no one else can see him but his friends, who have known him for three years or more, and his very much problematic teachers. Problematic teachers won’t teach you how to  _ not  _ be problematic, right?

“Sure, mom. Thanks,” he chuckles, stretching his limbs just to kneel down, checking beneath his bed for his luggage. The last time he used it was a few years ago, when he had to move in with his aunt since his father thinks he's a source of too much noise and he was about to go on a duty, a stressful one at that. Hyunjin misses the way his mother choked on tears as he pulls out the luggage, covering his nose and mouth from the collected dust atop of it. “I don’t think I’ll need to bring that many, though. There’s a laundromat in the basement, I think - since some of us stay in the dorms when there are Sports Championship and stuff, but-” Hyunjin is cut short by his mother engulfing him in a tear-filled hug.

He doesn’t feel anything but guilt. Not because he’s almost happy to leave home. He feels guilty for arriving in this stage of life, where he feels like this about his own family, his own parents - where he feels nothing. Feeling nothing is another sense of guiltiness, yet he can do nothing about it but continue feeling nothing. It’s been a coping mechanism for Hyunjin, and he’s not about to let anything come in between that. 

Or so he thought.

Later that night, at midnight, Yeji shot him a text, as if knowing somehow he’s still awake. They don’t talk as much as they used to in first year, when they literally were dubbed the Hwang Twins because they’re at each other’s house so much playing soccer and eating pizzas and talking about unrequited crushes, but they’re still really good friends. Or so Hyunjin would like to think. Yeji never acted indifferent towards him, and that’s a pretty good sign for him, still. Two years doesn’t sound like a lot on paper, but then you live through it and realize how many things are allowed to happen within those two years.

Hyunjin decided to press the call button, already knowing how flustered this would make Yeji sound. Or maybe not. This is a rough day for all of them, he concludes when Yeji answers the phone with a stiff, “So. . .”

“Yeah,” Hyunjin replies, putting his phone down to concentrate more on his game. This is the last game he’ll be playing in a while, might as well make use of it. He’s not going to bring it with him. It’s a little too heavy. 

“I hate the dormitory’s beds, though,” Yeji sniffs, sounding like her nose is clogged. It’s not caused by crying, though, Hyunjin thinks. She sounds fine, and he knows a lot about how she sounds when she’s just cried - mostly over boys, but sometimes girls - and this is not crying.  _ It’s her allergies, maybe,  _ Hyunjin concludes. “You can always ditch the beds and sleep on the floor,” Hyunjin replies, almost cursing when he once again fails the level. He presses restart, chuckling to himself, “Stop stealing your little sister’s peanut butter oreos. You can’t fucking eat peanuts, Yeji.”

There’s silence, and then something  _ clank _ -ed on the other side of his phone. “How the  _ fuck  _ do you always know, Hyunjin? You scary motherfucker? I swear you’re in this kitchen with me, aren’t you?” Yeji asks, mouth full of something. Hyunjin rolls his eyes. Of course she doesn’t listen and munch a whole oreo instead. Dumbass. 

“Why would I be in your kitchen? I haven’t even finished packing. I ditched packing to play a game one last time before we spend our days shooting dummies and maybe zombies, one fucking day,” Hyunjin retaliates, letting out a strained scream when his character is losing. “At least your spirit is here with me, isn’t it?” Yeji continues, and Hyunjin can hear her climbing the stairs to her own room.

“Yeah,” Hyunjin decides to humour her, “look in the mirror.”

Yeji did, mockingly gasping in the process, too. Hyunjin never fails to laugh when he remembers the fact that people think they look similar. That, he thinks, is peak comedy. Comedy started with the people who thought they look like siblings. 

“Oy,” he starts again, “your room’s still upstairs? I thought you were about to convince your sister to switch rooms since your long ass legs are too lazy to get up there?”

“No I did manage to hit her out of her own room,” Yeji cackles, and the sound of something being dragged distracted Hyunjin. “But the rest of my important things are still up here. I haven’t finished packing either, you know.”

Hyunjin called her a dumbass and Yeji retaliated with a ‘look in the mirror’ comment before they continued fighting about when they should sleep at least just a wink. Yeji said preferably at 1 or 2 AM, since she’s scared of staying up during the witching hours which Hyunjin called bullshit on since they used to not sleep when Yeji is busy ranting about a senior in college she had a crush on, so Hyunjin bargained for 4 AM and Yeji got mad saying ‘Why don’t we just sleep when we get there, then, fucking dumbass?’ and they fell into a silent agreement. “Yeji,” Hyunjin calls out when he’s in the middle of sorting out which toothpaste he wants to pack. She hums in reply, rummaging on something from her vanity shelf. “I’m sorry.”

“Fucking-” Yeji curses, and a soft bump signifies the fact that she sat down. “Stop! What even are you sorry for, you’re going to give me a heart attack.”

“Well I never got to say sorry before you moved away two years ago. I still feel bad,” Hyunjin grimaces. Asking for forgiveness is never his strong point. “For what, stating the obvious?” Yeji chuckles, but there’s a bitter tinge to it. “I won’t hate you for it, Hyunjin. I know that’s just how you are. Stating the obvious, that other people sometimes would much rather keep unsaid because it would hurt other people’s feelings-”

“And that’s why I’m sorry,” Hyunjin cuts off. “But you weren’t  _ wrong,  _ Hyunjin,” Yeji repeats. “And we need more people like you, rather than sugar coating everything just to keep a heartbreak away. Especially in times like this,” she sighs, “you know? Don’t change.”   
Hyunjin’s eyes are now fixed on his game character, dying on the screen. 

“Sure,” he hums, looking at his slightly opened window. “I’ll start off by saying that you suit this hair-colour more.”

Hyunjin wound up with only one big luggage and two small backpacks, even though he doesn’t consider the backpacks as small since it covers the entirety of his back. That and a few of his smaller things shoved somewhere in between, something he doesn’t need to figure out how to organize until later on, he’s set and ready to arrive at school when the clock strikes 5 AM. He personally thinks that it’s a bit unrealistic that he would return to school at this hour of the morning, but his mother insisted, and Felix is already drowning his messenger with a billion texts saying that he’s literally alone in school, only accompanied by this weird kid their age who apparently is named Mark Lee or something. He said he’ll take part in helping them learn hand to hand ‘combat’ and stuff, but Hyunjin ignores Felix for the sake of his own sanity. 

Why is Felix so keen on leaving the house, too, he wonders as his mother parked in the near empty parking lot by 5:12 AM. Felix looks comfortable enough to be considered settled, wearing his track running jacket and a non-formal shirt with his phone in his hands, squinting when he recognizes Mrs. Hwang’s car. 

He greets them formally and helps Hyunjin with his bags, ignoring the fact that Hyunjin deemed it not necessary since he was still too embarrassed in getting to school this early. 

“Well, aren’t  _ you  _ excited?” a familiar voice rings from behind Hyunjin’s back as he turns around near the stairs by the entrance, noticing someone familiar walking down in pajamas and hair standing right up messily. It’s Moon Taeil, also known as Mister Moon by the kids usually. They even made a whole cartoon character based on him, and he’s the only decently teacher-like teacher they’ve had, though he came in with Taeyong and his gang. Hyunjin doesn’t know why his brain suddenly decided that it’s Taeyong’s gang, all of a sudden, but maybe because he’s the one talking to his mother right now, already proper and ready though it’s still very early in the morning.

“Mister Moon,” Hyunjin greets, grinning weirdly. “I haven’t seen you in a while. Not that I’m complaining. No offense to you, but Economics is just tiring,” he continues, and Felix silently agrees by his side, though he’s the only one who received a soft slap on the side of his shoulder when Taeil passes by them, a coffee cup in hand. “Yeah, well. Now that things are going smooth, you won’t see a lot of me ever again. Sorry, kids. Don’t miss me too much,” he shrugs, turning to the entrance when it dings, signifying the fact that someone else entered the room. It’s Lia, and she’s only wearing a single backpack. She threw a smile at Hyunjin, who waved at her.

“Why, Mister Moon?” Felix questions, debating on whether or not he should also help Lia on carrying her bag since she seems to arrive alone. “Because I’m just good at dealing with administrations, kids,” Taeil cackles, right as Lia scoot closer to their side, listening in. “I mean I won’t die if you shove me a gun, but I don’t know,” he scrunches his nose up, as if disgusted, “counting numbers is just what I’m into.”

He bids them farewell though they most likely will bump into each other again, and Hyunjin looks back at his mother who finished his questions and - hopefully not threats - statements with Lee Taeyong, and she’s on her way to leave a peck on Hyunjin’s cheek. Lia awed in the back just to get on his nerves, and just like that, his mother is on her way. 

“Are the rooms situated close to each other or is it divided by floors?” Lia asks Felix, who doesn’t really know the answer. “I don’t. . . really know. I’ve only seen underclassmen in the meeting hall, though, dressed informally. I think that’s where we’re supposed to dump our stuff for now.”

“Wait, Felix, aren’t you the school’s athlete?” Lia questions, already walking towards the stairs, “I mean like, you’re in a club. And you’ve gone places as a representative. Not necessarily a big goal since that’s a little harsh to come to terms with since our academic pressure is. . . well, you know?” she chuckles, and Felix tries to not take it to heart. “Yes. . . what does that have to do with where I dump my things, though?”

Lia looks at him, exasperated.

“I don’t know, Felix. Since, well, the club rooms exist? I guess it would be safer to store it there, you know? Avoid things like mixing up your things with other people’s, too. We don’t know how they’re supposed to room us yet, so?”

Hyunjin looks at the two retreating figures since  _ he’s  _ not in any club. At all. So he decided to walk the other direction, when they reached the third floor. The lamps on the hallways are all dead, but since it’s about a half other hour to six in the morning now, there are little rays of upcoming light spilling from the windows and the still light-blue sky, and the meeting hall’s lamps are turned on all the way to the back, where they usually store unimportant (maybe cursed) things. His phone vibrates, and Hyunjin remembers the fact that he must’ve forgotten to answer a few of Yeji’s calls.

But there are only texts, luckily, and it seems like the other girl is here. 

He had a half heart on going back downstairs to help her as a kind young man but then figured that Yeji is a lot faster than he is. . . there she is, the stomping sounds of her feet echoing through the hallways’ walls. 

Hyunjin made a move to turn around, though stopped when the corner of his eyes saw someone standing in front of the meeting hall. Her hair reaches her waist, and it’s wavy and brunette, almost like she’s a foreigner. Her eyes are round and big enough to appear curious most of the time, and she’s tall. Like, Hyunjin’s height. That’s tall enough for a young woman, right?

He opted to look at her instead, eyes narrowing to fight the light coming from the back of this girl’s entire being.  _ Ah, this one. The third ranker. _

Hyunjin huffs out air through his nostrils, pushing the corners of his lips into a smile. “Hi,” he nods curtly to greet her. “Hyunjin. Hwang Hyunjin. Nice to meet you.”

The girl’s eyebrows furrowed to the middle of her forehead instead, analyzing his name in concentration. “Ah, you’re a senior,” she muses, more to herself than to Hyunjin, “also the  _ now  _ first ranker, huh. You knocked over my friend’s crush to the second place, you know?” she chuckles, now sounding a little more friendly as she gives him space to get through. “I’m Jeon Somi. Nice to meet you, Hwang Hyunjin!”

Hyunjin almost laughs.  _ Someone have a crush on Yeji? Again?  _

The meeting hall - “function” hall, according to Mr. Jung - is packed with the entirety of their highschool students, and based on the buzzing underneath their floor, their juniors in middle school are also having an emergency meeting at the moment. Emergency as in; what the fuck is going on, please let us know immediately. Hyunjin is debating whether or not he should tell his mother that he’s still alive at 7 AM while Jisung and Seungmin are fighting over a cardboard division their names are plastered on, he’s currently biting his nails, drowned in nerves.

Yeji is a few feet in front of them, not leaning on the wall since she opted to be with Lia and Ryujin instead, the underclassman we have previously stated, alongside Somi who Hyunjin had just met and an unknown sixth person he doesn’t know about. Seungmin told them briefly that he knew an underclassman from his old elementary school named Chaeryeong or Chaeyoung or. . . or someone else, Hyunjin is afraid to butcher it even further, and maybe that is her. 

“Listen,” Jung Jaehyun - also known by the kids as Mr. Jung - tapped on the microphone. It screeched for a while, letting the kids calm down before he continued with what he’s about to say. “You might be wondering why we’re keeping you here, all of a sudden. Away from your family and parents, unless your siblings also were taken out of the comforts of your own rooms in another school, then they share the same fate you do,” he ended this sentence, pursing his lips.

“Yes, there are also other schools that are doing this. Be shocked all you want, but not shocked enough to  _ not  _ listen to what I say. I give you five seconds,” Jaehyun shuts his mouth, and Hyunjin can see Taeyong and Youngho stopping themselves from laughing behind their youngest teacher in the room. Hyunjin grins at how amusing the situation is, since the five seconds were spent completely quiet. “Okay, the five seconds are up. Now, I give you the answers in general. Further information is only going to be shared to your rank’s captains further down the line, and it’s their choice to share the burden with the rest of you or not.”

Jaehyun clears his throat, looking around the room.

“We’re not technically fit to be teachers. We aren’t, and we’re instead a secret part of the government’s defense system that we can not really unfold to you at the moment. Maybe later, when some of you are dying. But we are sent here on a mission to help you kids protect yourselves, since as you all know yourselves, most of your parents are powerful and important people inside this country’s governing system. Therefore, we were placed here two years ago, alongside the time the third years now first stepped foot in this academy.”

“Why two years ago, you ask? Because two years ago, swallowed by pride and maybe something else, our precious  _ scientists,”  _ there’s venom dripping from Jaehyun’s voice, “developed something they can not undo. Something very dangerous, they say, that they requested an automatic abomination of this country by default. It was said to be that dangerous and that if any chances rose that it would spread, we, and I mean the  _ entire  _ world would face the consequences. Because this. . . poison? It’s made out of gas.”

There’s a gasp from the corner of the room, and Jaehyun’s eyes narrow. “I know. It is extra dangerous since it’s gas. But worry not, kids,” he smiles, dimples showing, “the laboratorium is underground. So, only those people down there are turned into zombies, and the entrance to it is sealed completely by a bomb and the army is looking out for whatever the fuck could emerge from the depths of its hell hole.”

“Zombies?” Ryujin asks, a little too loud for her own liking since she grimaces. Jaehyun nods, despite not knowing which kid said what. 

“But why were they turned? Did anything happen to them?”

Jaehyun scans the room to try and find whoever the fuck asked that question, but failed. “Uh, our sources said that it’s just because they inhaled too much of it. We don’t know either,” he shrugs, passing the microphone to Taeyong, who looks mildly amused while he brings it closer to his lips. 

“None of you wants to know why you’re all here? Really?” he asks, and the murmuring stops. “Alright, I’ll take the silence as a question.  _ Why are we here, Mr. Lee? Please tell us,”  _ Taeyong holds his right hand up and voices it to sound like. . . a kid was probably what he was going for, but it ended up sounding like he’s an almost decapitated duck. Almost. “So, my dearest little brats,” he begins, and Hyunjin focuses on not laughing, “this is revenge. Sorta, kinda. Since all your parents do was boss us around like little unappreciated underlings when they  _ really  _ enjoy throwing us out into the most inhumane and dangerous fights out there, we think we could teach them a little lesson by using you all as a first defense mechanism!” Taeyong announces as if waiting for a birthday song to be played.

He doesn’t stop there, though.

“Defense mechanism against what, you might ask? Oh, silly little kids. Against the zombies, obviously,” Taeyong smiles, and Hyunjin swore there’s a little iron ring around his front upper fangs, glinting underneath the function hall’s lamps. “If they bit into one of those army-men, or whatever,  _ you  _ kids will have to go forth and smash their fucking heads! And  _ we  _ are here to teach you the most effective and brutal way to do it! Isn’t it  _ fun?”  _

Taeyong yelps when Jaehyun nudges his side from the back, and his smile turns into a pout. “Aight’ fine. Jaehyun said my words were a little vulgar for little fancy brats. I mean, darlings, smash the fucking zombies’ heads. Copy?” he rewinds, prolonging the last part of his sentences just because he can. 

Some heads were seen nodding, and Hyunjin leaned further onto the wall. Did they just get a crazy bunch by accident, or is every single member of the ‘secret service’ team this way? He will never know, Hyunjin thinks to himself before Taeyong speaks - or ordered, something, once again.

“Good. Now scram, you useless kids. Third years,  _ stay.  _ I have a lot to say to you,” the red headed man ushers everyone else away. Hyunjin notices how both Ryujin and Somi hesitated to leave until Taeyong himself has to glare at them like a mother, but Chaeryeong(?) is already by the door, ready to leave. 

“Oh!” Taeyong smiles, sickeningly bitter, “If any of you have ‘escape’ in mind since you’ve just heard what you are here for, please just forget it. There’s a wall around this entire academy. It’s invisible but you’ll get zapped for touching it without permission. I don’t want to carry your burnt bodies outside to feed the birds, so please don’t touch the walls without permission. Thank you!” the man giggles, sounding as fake as he could muster before slamming the hall’s door shut. He looks at the third years that are left, almost rolling his eyes like a kid.

“My first year here wasn’t that disappointing since you all are not as bratty as I assumed you would be, but then those kids came by and I wanna just-” Taeyong slaps both of his hands on his face, the sound echoing through the room as he drags it down, revealing the red marks it left behind, “you know?” 

Lia nods, right across from him.

“I know. They’re a pain in the ass,” she states, seemingly empathizing. Taeyong looks at the third year, eyes narrowed. “Why? Did they bully you?” he asks, grimacing when Lia nods excitedly. Seungmin gasps from across the room, mouthing that they did the same thing to him just because both Lia and Seungmin look like they could be younger than the first years. Taeyong looks like he’s seething with anger, and Hyunjin laughs at the obvious way their teacher is playing favourites. He himself wouldn’t agree  _ or  _ disagree. The first years fear both him and Yeji since they look terrifyingly tall, but he understands why bullying people who look ‘weak’ is not wrong.

“Taeyong, don’t torture the first years more just because of this,” Youngho chimes from the back, typing away at his laptop while Jaehyun laughs instead. “Well I won’t  _ promise  _ you that,” Taeyong replies, in the middle of making a pinky-promise with both Lia and Seungmin before Youngho gave him a look. “Fine. I promise not to hurt the kids, but if they so much as not show respect to their seniors I’m striking them down.”

Jaehyun gasps, coming out with a new idea. 

“No, you know what? Make one of these kids strike them down,” he points at Hyunjin and Yeji, looking around for their third ranker only to realize that she’s a second year. Youngho sighs at the fact that Jaehyun is supporting this behaviour but says nothing.

“Honestly Jaehyun? You’re a genius,” Taeyong cackles, sounding like his windpipe is blocked from air. “Oh yeah, the thing I’m supposed to tell you.”

“Finally?” Youngho mutters, focusing on his work when Taeyong glared at him.

“I see that not all of you are allowed to come here, hm?” he calculates, looking around the room to find out that there’s enough people for whatever he’s planning to do. “Ah. So. We planned to make the third years act as Captain and Vice Captain. Just because we think you’re the most responsible, is all. And apparently you follow this one particular person really well, even though he’s not. . . overly bossy,” he finishes, looking at Hyunjin. 

“So, for the time being, based on the newest updated scoreboards also known as your shooting lessons, Hwang Hyunjin will be a Captain, and Hwang Yeji will be a Vice Captain. We’ll see you two’s dynamics and within three weeks or four we’ll decide on how to proceed with our decisions,” Taeyong smiles, clapping his hands together like a kid. “Exciting. Okay. This is great! I know you two have great dynamics with each other, I just knew it,” he says again, standing up. “Your only tasks while under this academy are helping me quiet them down or help all the other kids who are in a slump, since we, as your teachers are still in charge to some extent. When you’re acquired to go to the outside world, however, I genuinely hope that you two will be ready for what’s to come,” and he nods, opening the door to let a young man in. He’s slightly older than them, maybe, and he’s wearing round glasses that made him resemble  _ Harry Potter.  _ Hyunjin raises his eyebrows.

“For the time being,” Youngho takes over when Taeyong just zooms outside without saying anything else, “Mark Lee over here is going to help us teach you hand to hand combat, since Taeyong is. . . unfit for teaching this particular thing.”

“I thought you’re all unfit for teaching,” Jisung asks, and Youngho shared a glance at Jaehyun. “Well, this one is for a different reason. No fight is a ‘practice’ fight for Taeyong since he’s, well, Lee Taeyong. He’s dangerous to be around, especially if you’re throwing punches, either playfully or not. Am I making any sense?” Jaehyun scrunches his nose, facing Hyunjin and his friends. Jisung shakes his head, muttering a loud ‘fuck no.’

“Your sociology teacher, Taeyong. He’s in the Secret Services because letting him not be controlled by the government is too dangerous, but so is letting him be a normal member of the other forces. So he was put in the Secret Services, which didn’t even exist to do anything until Seo Youngho came along with another mission. . . that has passed,” Jaehyun nods to himself, “Taeyong’s a bit hard to control. But we never felt the need to. Until this mission, that is,” Jaehyun laughs, hitting Mark’s shoulders. 

“No fear, kids,” Youngho adds when he deems it too quiet, “he won’t hurt what’s precious to him. And I’ve never seen him attached to kids before, but he sure is, now,” the man focused on the computer finishes, and Jaehyun is suddenly flustered. “Did I make him sound scarier than he is?” the younger asks.

“I think you did.”   
“I- Johnny help me undo it!”   
“Nope. I helped you enough by telling them something even Taeyong doesn’t want to admit,” Youngho slams his computer shut to look at the kids, with Mark Lee already walking to the corner of the room to prepare. “Should we get started on today’s first class, then?”

. . 

Yeji feels a sense of weird satisfaction when Lia  _ literally  _ slammed her down. She feels even more satisfied when she can hear Jaehyun’s voice in the corner, asking them ‘wait- hold- how the fuck-’ and Yeji told their music teacher that Lia managed to make her lose her balance and the older took that chance to nudge her all the way down, and she fell unceremoniously. But Yeji felt happy for her friend, especially when Jaehyun laughed, putting both his arms up waiting to give Lia a high five before he ruffled her hair. 

“Yo- that was  _ great!  _ How did you take Yeji down?” Jisung hurried over from the other side to congratulate Lia dramatically, and Mark, who he was sparring, heaved a sigh. Yeji chuckles to herself while standing up, noticing how Hyunjin is standing there with a knowing smile. “I didn’t,” Yeji wags her index finger, and Hyunjin’s eyebrows were raised. “What?”

“I didn’t give that to her. She did it all by herself,” Yeji continues, and Hyunjin snorts. “I  _ know.  _ That’s why I’m about to laugh at you, nerd.”

Lia can feel her adrenaline pumping all the way to the 5th floor’s roof, and she stops herself from getting mad when the class is over. She doesn’t know what hand-to-hand combat will be used for when they’re fighting  _ zombies,  _ but she’s happy she’s got something to defend herself with. Sure, anyone would be intimidated when you hold a gun or a knife to their faces, but soon enough they’ll figure out that you can’t use them if the fight goes on for long enough. And zombies can’t be intimidated.

Furthermore, her rank was all of a sudden increased all the way to five since she took  _ Hyunjin  _ out five consecutive times. Lia has really good balance, the class concluded, and Jaehyun looks like he’s close to tears. 

At the end of the class, however, Yeji looks subtly troubled as her eyes cast outside, looking through the cracks of the blinds. Her classmates are still chattering away behind her current concentration, and the lack of completeness makes her a little flustered. What Taeyong has said was correct, since not every single one of the third years was allowed a transition to now stay with them, despite the so-called ‘blackmail’ the Secret Services sent out on behalf of their name. That is, if the blackmail bullshit even checks out in the first place. Yeji, for one, is a non-believer that the government would go that far to allow a blackmail for their own slightly unimportant underdogs, a weapon their forces would have to use. It’s like shooting bullets into your own rib cage, it just doesn’t make any sense. But does it have to make sense?

Her fingers wrapped around the necklace her mother slung upon her neck, earlier this morning. It’s a little heavy, almost as big as a little box with a lid on the back of it and a family picture behind them. Yeji ponders for a while over the fact that it  _ is  _ kind of heavy and she could, maybe, put it in her backpack for times where agility and quick-reflexes are needed so it doesn’t bother her if even the slightest, but her thoughts were disturbed by the sight she’s able to see beyond the window.

It’s almost like electrocution, a death sentence even. You know, when people are seated on a chair and they get zapped to death?

But the electric force goes all the way to the sky, and if Yeji saw it right, it started from the tips of their (generally) tall gates. It looks like when a lightning strikes and gives you shivers on the back of your spine as it concludes at the very top of its hitting point, all the way above and beyond the school’s building. Yeji is unable to see where it ends from this fact alone, but she backs away enough to hit someone else’s back. It was Jaehyun’s, and the older man was frowning, his brains racking for ways to tell Yeji what that was. She didn’t really need an explanation, however, since she was good at remembering  _ anything  _ she heard or seen before.

“Was that. . .” Yeji starts out, one of her hands gripping on the blinds, “a person?”

Jaehyun grimaces, shaking his head to point at the dead lump of roasted avian right below their class’s window, and Taeyong’s bright red hair strutting towards it in a hurry, followed by maybe a dozen or more students. “It’s a bird, Yeji,” Jaehyun shrugs, tapping her shoulder to tell her that the rest is already on their way outside, though Jisung and Felix are stunned by what Yeji also saw earlier. “A bird?” Yeji continues, “Did it fly  _ in  _ or tried to fly out?”

“Fly in,” Jaehyun replies, looking behind him to check if what he said scared the kids or not. “Wait, does that mean it doesn’t stop things from being able to come in?” Jisung concludes, and Jaehyun nods at this, noting that Yeji and Felix both round up to the exact conclusion Jisung did, but just. . . quietly. “But it completely roasted them into dust, Jisung. No need to sweat it, okay? I’ve never heard of flying zombies, up until now,” Jaehyun slings his arm over Jisung’s shoulder, and the squirrel-faced teen shivers. “Not yet,” he continues, and Jaehyun laughs.

Felix took this chance to nudge Yeji’s arm while they pass over the slightly opened window to their left, noticing that the second years are training with Mr. Kim on something akin to a military course. Jeon Somi is all the way at the end, catching her breath while leaning on the side of her hip, and Shin Ryujin is at least one and a half second behind as the two shared a laughter-filled high five. The third years can hear Kim Doyoung’s calm and collected “Nice. Good job,” from all the way up where they stood, and they share a look.

“I can’t do things like that,” Felix cackles when he catches sight of Yeji’s terrified face. “Yeah,” Yeji nods, “seems very. . . tiring.”   
“Lia might be good at it, no?” The boy continues, taking notes that there are a lot of arm-strength based training courses in there with the same amount of ‘standing on top of one log’s, all in one field. Felix never even realized that they’ve got that many fields, but he sure as hell ain’t complaining.

“We have so many fucking fields, man,” Yeji voices out beside him, and Felix shifts in shock.  _ Can Yeji read minds? He’s awfully sure she can’t- _

“The elementary kids’ fields aren’t that wide, but we make use of those, too. They’ve all been transferred somewhere else. Who knows how long this will be going on? Maybe they’ll be useful assets in the future,” Jaehyun explains, putting his super-hearing to good use. “Oh, right, Mr. Jung?” Felix catches up, leaving a very enthralled Yeji behind. 

Felix’s question sounds like a bunch of static noise in Yeji’s mind, even though she sees right on ahead, her vision as clear as day. It’s almost as if a part in her head doesn’t want her to know what the question is implying, even though she doesn’t think that she knows what Felix was about to say in the first place. Something else is bothering her, though, and it’s crawling up from the back of her spine. 

She subtly heard someone call for her, yet the feeling overpowers her sense of hearing and she freezes. When Yeji turns her head back, she hears screeching and full-out  _ screams  _ overflowing from the slightly opened window to her left, and it grows louder by the second.

Yeji didn’t think when she bolted, took off in the other direction they were going as she headed to the emergency stairs, not minding Felix who is apparently right by her side.

A string of,  _ “What the fuck is that?”  _ and some  _ “Stop moving, I think they can see us?”  _ further fires Yeji up though her leg muscles are screaming for her to stop moving. 

There’s only a few levels left before they reach the source of noises, but then; “Wait, Yeji look!” Felix’s arm flies over her front, and she stops for a second, annoyed and ready to snap since her mission was just halted until she realizes the fact that they’re standing in front of a window looking straight down to where the kids are surrounding. . . something. Nothing in particular, the duo realized after leaning forward to slide the window pane upwards, but the students down there  _ are  _ huddled in front of the front gate, gazes scrutinizing ahead to watch a moving figure. The figure is outside their school’s gate, one where Yeji came from this morning - and its step is staggered, almost akin to herself when she sprained an ankle due to a heavily packed routine her dance team covered a few months back.

Taeyong is standing in the middle of all the children, standing with both of his arms spread as if it could stop the flow of students coming from the ends of his arms’ length. It does nothing, as any man would have guessed by the fact that Taeyong has. . . normal arm length, but the students appear to heed his warnings by not standing too close to the gates unless they want to feel the electrocution the poor bird went through, earlier this noon. That, or they’re afraid of Taeyong and the things they’ve seen him capable of doing - which, he hasn’t done anything but teach them how to shoot a target, but he’s been doing so with incredible accuracy, so.  _ Oh, and that staggering figure  _ is  _ creepy as fuck, so. _

“Lix, I want to see closer,” Yeji pushes his friend away to yank the last emergency door open, heading straight downstairs, mentally dragging a whining Lee Felix over with her with reasons varying from being ‘don’t be a pussy,’ to ‘Hyunjin and Seungmin are down there too, let’s fucking go.’

Once they step foot on the crime scene though - unless there’s no crime yet, just a bunch of huddling kids with Taeyong in the middle, eyes set on the figure moving closer and closer. The figure appears to be a woman, maybe younger than a middle-aged lady they’re all used to seeing, the fact that most of their mothers being around that age really serves little to this age-guessing game they’re all going through currently. Though in silence. No one really says anything. 

“Look kids,” Taeyong starts off, voice sounding like he’s talking through gritted teeth. Yeji can’t really tell, she can’t see his face. “This is one of the few real life examples you’re going to have to see every other day, now,” he continues, and in the back of her head, Yeji can hear footsteps. And then Mr. Jung’s voice, seemingly filled with threat even when all he said was, “Taeyong!”

_ No,  _ Yeji almost replied in place of her red headed teacher,  _ let him finish. _

“This is how a zombie is going to be  _ zapped  _ into pieces when they try to approach us,” he turns around, noticing how some students are gripping on his outer jacket, their knuckles turned white. “Li-like the bird earlier?” someone asks, and Yeji can spot the back of Hyunjin’s head, unmoving and frozen like a statue. Taeyong nods to answer the question, and the student backs away, looking here and there when she notices no one else doing the same thing. 

Interesting.

Hyunjin looks up when his side was brushed by the figure of Mr. Jung coming out from behind them, eyebrows furrowed together in unsettling disagreement and his entire face covered in a thin layer of sweat. “Taeyong, send these kids back in right now.”

Taeyong shrugs at the absolute tone in the younger’s voice, very visibly holding himself from sending an eye-roll Jaehyun’s way since he notices how much it will do to the kids’ respect for him. He can’t be setting bad examples  _ this  _ early into the school year, can he?

“Ja- Mister Jung,” Taeyong replies, head hung low while his eyes are set on Jaehyun’s face. “This is some real life learning system. We can’t be teaching them how to survive, much less be a useful and viable weapon for this country in defense against the undead if they can’t even handle the thought of roasting someone alive!”

Hyunjin slightly cringes when he hears someone’s stomach ripple in an almost-gag when Taeyong lets these words slip from his mouth. 

The gagging kid is somehow a proven example in defense of Taeyong’s words, said man thinks, since he raised an arm towards the kid who is now retreating quickly just to not throw up in the middle of the school’s open grounds. “See? If we got a bunch full of that as the outcome of our new curriculum here, Jung,  _ our  _ fucking heads are going to be on the table,” Taeyong says in an almost growl. Jaehyun full on rolled his eyes at this. Taeyong gave a faux gasp.

“At least give them a heads up on what’s happening, please. And let them have the option of backing away. And  _ not  _ be called a coward,” Jaehyun supplies, and this seems to strike something within Taeyong’s heart they don’t really know about yet since the older among the two bickering teachers huffed, though he looks vehemently bored all of a sudden. “Fucking fine, since you said so,” the red head chuckles, though it sounds bitter even to unknowing ears as Hyunjin’s own. 

“It- I mean the nice lady over here?” Taeyong points at the staggering lady, now inching closer and closer. “She’s gonna get burned in our oh-so-majesticly-magical ‘electrocuting invisible wall’ that someone has put over our entire academy. It’s a little gore and not family friendly, so screw off if you’re not ready for those kinds of displays,” he claps his hands together, throwing Jaehyun a victorious smirk when none of the kids move, save for their terrified and nervous facial expressions. Taeyong’s eyes fell on Hyunjin though, and the kid looked rather. . . interested.  _ Which is interesting on its own,  _ Taeyong scrunches his nose up as the gears in his brain turns. “Does she not know?” Jisung chimes in from beside Hyunjin, and Taeyong shrugs. “Well, this  _ was  _ a bitchy old lady from down there in the laboratory. In fact, she was the one who helped the world in creating the zombie-gas which zombified their own selves, but, Mister Han Jisung, if you’d be so kind to remind her that we have electrocuting walls, be our guest,” the older man smiles, resembling a little smiley emoticon before his gaze darkened underneath the curtains of his own fringe, “see how her brain is too demolished to understand simple yes or no orders.”

Hyunjin holds the laughter that almost erupted from the pit of his stomach since he realized that this isn’t an appropriate time to laugh at a dark joke, even when his own teacher was the one who ignited it. He’d like to be considered normal a little longer, thank you very much. 

So he opted on turning around to further notify himself with the talks that Youngho and Jaehyun were engaging themselves in, only a few feet behind the kids. 

“I genuinely thought we were going to start by familiarizing the kids with burning a chicken or something, you know? Or a frog, so we could be classified as real educating methods,” Jaehyun complains, and Hyunjin heard Youngho’s confused noises, thanking Gods above that their physical education teacher is as confused as he is. “Why do we suddenly classify as real educators if we use fucking frogs, Yoonoh?” Youngho asks the younger, covering his laugh behind a curse and the use of Jaehyun’s real name. “Because universities use frogs, I asked my sister,” Jaehyun retaliates. 

“Well yeah, but they also dig up real corpses. So I don’t really see the flaw in Taeyong’s methods,” Youngho continues typing on his phone, apparently, since there are subtle clicks heard and Hyunjin doesn’t remember seeing Youngho’s laptop anywhere. Jaehyun tsk-ed. “You two just hate the kids so fucking much,” he chuckles.

“I don’t see the harm in harming them mentally, a little bit,” Youngho covers for both himself and Taeyong, but mostly himself, Hyunjin adds in his mind. “Even the littlest bit of mental damage they have won’t add up to what we’ve been through. And I’d say we’d make a pretty good team after our mental health were. . . well, you know. We went through all of that,” the oldest stops talking now, and Hyunjin can hear Jaehyun’s calm breathing.

“And now this.”

Hyunjin stops listening now, noting how he can’t even feel for the two older men, so what good would it be for him to continue listening to useless banters?

“Ma’am!” he hears Jisung’s cracking voice, noting how Taeyong laughs after the young boy showcased his puberty-voice-abilites. “Please stop walking! Unless you’re permitted, these gates are going to burn you-”

The lady doesn’t answer. 

Not illiterately. There’s a gurgle-like sound that erupted from the back of her throat, or well, from everywhere else. Most of her eyes are white, nearing gray, apparently, and her hair stuck to her skin in a weird sweat-like way, but weirder. The skins surrounding her hairline and her forehead are dark gray, almost black and melted in a way as if she’s  _ already  _ been burnt. Her jaw and teeth are exposed, and it’s slack against the bottom of her neck as if the bottom of it was dislocated from the rest of her face, and her opened jaw is where the gurgling noise came from, as if she’s trying to breathe while being in a permanent chokehold. 

Accurate to what Taeyong has said, she’s wearing a lab coat, though covered in dust or ash, Hyunjin isn’t sure. She’s walking with one of his shoes on and the other leg covered by nothing, bent in an uncomfortable angle Hyunjin is  _ sure  _ would’ve hurt her if she still has any sense of pain left. That said, Hyunjin doesn’t think she even feels the pain of her eyeballs almost popping out or her eye-sockets or her jaw being unhinged, so the leg being bent must be the least of her problems?

Taeyong gave Jisung an ‘I told you so’ glare when the younger one tilted his head towards their teacher, still curious. 

“Aight,” Taeyong takes his beloved blade out of the side of his belt, forcing everyone to back off. “The explosion is going to be bigger than the bird we saw earlier, so we might not want to be too close. It smells disgusting too. Back- Jeon Somi, I swear to god, are you a cannibal or something? No? Back off, then. You won’t like the smell.”

“On the cannibal’s defense,” Youngho chimes in, since both him and Jaehyun are now in ear-shot with everyone else based off the fact that everyone backed off a little, “they don’t like the smell of a burning piece of shit, either.”   
Taeyong shrieks in delight at the (or so he claimed) sick burn coming from Youngho, and Hyunjin concludes that this zombie-lady truly did something unimaginable to them. He was about to ask when the speakers screeched as it usually does when someone is in the audio room, trying to announce something to the rest of the school.

_ “Am I on? I am, folks. Look at that, I did something without Johnny’s help- ah, yes, Sir. Of course, sorry for the intrusion,”  _ came Moon Taeil’s voice through the fifty speakers they have throughout the school grounds, and Taeyong giggled once again, sensing how scared Taeil sounded.  _ “Kids, listen to this announcement your boss has to tell you. Well, our boss - but since you work with us now, your boss, too? Maybe? Alright, Sir, go on ahead.” _

Taeyong, who notices Hyunjin’s curiosity - that is shifting at a very high rate, apparently, and he can tell - nudges the younger’s shoulder as he leans in. 

“This boss is an asshole. Don’t trust anyone that works for the government,” the red head explains, and Hyunjin spared him a questioning glance to give the older a smile. “That’s why you dislike your father, am I not right, Hwang Hyunjin?”   
Hyunjin really looks up to his teacher now, question filling his eyes. But before he can answer, an announcement was made, echoing through the speakers. 

_ “Experiment 1: Gates and Security. Academy #0127. Commence trials.” _

“That doesn’t. . . really sound like an announcement,” Ryujin whispers in Yeji’s air, the latter never realizing that the short-haired girl is by her side since she’s too focused on the announcement and how the first living (well, not really) zombie proceeds on walking. Based on this prototype - why the fuck is Yeji talking about it as if they’re checking out cars - and how fast it’s moving around, Yeji is sure she could take her out with a few blades or throwing knives if ever necessary. She’d just have to practice the endurance of over-running these things just in case they learn to run or walk faster, and maybe doing so while looking backwards and not falling on her face every now and then would be nice. Or she’d learn how to throw more accurate shots while she’s up on trees - or she’d pick up some guns, maybe. But they hurt her hands, most times, and that’s annoying.

The figure is now rushing, even though a little bit, since she’s picked up on the rustling sounds of the students nearby. Or she saw them, whichever one of the senses she’s still working on, the students don’t really know.

She bolts forward, determination apparent through how much louder she’s now growling, and Hyunjin barely recognizes the shiver running up his spine when he sees his teachers now standing in front of him, eyes scrutinizing every movement the zombie lady does, but that’s not the only thing that scares Hyunjin (only a little bit). It’s the absolute thirst of revenge in the trio’s eyes, and the fact that Taeyong is the only one openly enjoying this shit show rubs him the wrong way, even when both Youngho and Jaehyun also look like they’re almost. . . happy about this arrangement. This. . . experiment.

The jolts of electricity runs through the entire small 5 feet being of the middle-aged lady, and the growling doesn’t stop even when the zombie’s entire body convulses until it shrivels up into a crouching position where a half of its upper body  _ literally  _ fell in half, into their academy’s grounds while the rest of its hip downwards are still convulsing in the middle of their electrocuting gate, and the speakers act up, getting off into sirens and panicked words and orders thrown around. While all of this mess is going on, Hyunjin shifts when he sees Taeyong lunge forward, excitement glinting in his eyes while he walks as poised as he can to not seem. . . unprofessional. 

_ “Execute the experiment. Execute the experiment. Execute the-” _

The speakers are still blaring repeated orders until Taeyong walks over next to the half-slaughtered body of the convulsing zombie to step on her neck, facing the students and the rest of his friends. He holds his left arm up in the air, the hand that was holding his trusty blade pointing towards the brain of what used to be the middle aged lady. The speakers were turned off immediately, probably by Moon Taeil or Kim Doyoung up there in the audio room, where they can clearly see what’s going on over here through their security cameras. 

Now that the noises are cut off, (though the sirens are still blazing bright red colours) they can hear the guttural growls and hisses coming from the broken chords of the once human underneath Taeyong’s feet. He’s smiling, and he smiles a lot during their sociology classes. But this smile is. . . slightly different. Unnerving. Like when you get below 72 in his easy-as-fuck quizzes he stays up all night making while also making sure that it’s not too hard for kids almost a whole decade younger than he and his genius brain is.

“Now, now,” he starts off, digging his heels deeper into the neck of the zombie. The noises cut off almost immediately, but it’s still squirming around like a worm exposed to salt. Hyunjin looks up at his teacher’s face back down to his heels, scrunching his nose up when a pool of liquid pools underneath the zombie’s neck, where Taeyong stepped on. He fucked up the zombie’s previous vocal chords to pieces, and now it’s supposed to be bleeding out the holes of the back of its neck, but it doesn’t. . . look like how blood should look like. 

“This one doesn’t die as we expected it to. So what do we do now, kids? Hm?” he shifts away to his other leg when the rest of the zombie’s body comes lunging forward like a rocket caused by the sudden jolt of electricity since the gate chose to burn something still  _ considered  _ a fresh flesh. The legs are smoky and absolutely burned, and Taeyong coughs momentarily.

“Fuck, I fucking hate the smell. Come on, kiddos, I don’t want to be here longer than necessary. The one who gets to answer this question gets a tube of ice cream,” Taeyong adds, resting his hands on his hip. No one budges to answer. “Oh come the fuck on. You’re all going on a very strict diet, you know? Ice cream is a luxurious dessert-”

Ryujin shoots her hand up, beating Choi Beomgyu in just a millisecond. 

“I see the second years are eager. Go ahead, Shin Ryujin-” Taeyong gives the girl a go before he coughs once again, pouting as an immediate after-effect. 

“You have a blade in your hand, Sir. You’re going to chop its head off? You know, since it’s still wiggling even when its body is segregated. But maybe the head is like the source of power? I don’t- I’m not sure,” Ryujin ends, tugging some of her baby hairs behind her ears, and Taeyong clicked his tongue in a mother-like disapproval. (Mind you, he’s still stepping on the undead while acting like a mom. How dare he.)

“Be more sure of your own beliefs, Ryujin,” Taeyong frowns playfully, giving the young girl a smile almost soon after. “And if your beliefs are the factual  _ fact  _ that includes me, killing something,” he continues, kneeling down to now look at the undead in the eye, and in this particular moment Hyunjin sees something flash in the redhead’s eyes. He might have to figure it out later, though, because Taeyong, with a quick but slight movement of his right, blade-inforced hand, goes through the middle of the burnt zombie’s skull all the way down, and the previously convulsing head falls flat in two, divided in the middle, calmly sitting a few inches away from Taeyong’s knees.

Lee Taeyong stood up, wiping the excess blood (or what seems like it) on his pants, shooting the rest of the people there a charming toothy smile.

“Then you are  _ absolutely  _ correct.”

**Author's Note:**

> that was pwart 1 mf bc i didnt sleep for two days remaking this hoho


End file.
